Knoxville Anew

I'm traveling home to the Knoxville, TN area this weekend for the first time in six months, and I tell you, I'm actually quite elated.  Looking forward to spending time with my Mom and old buds, celebrating my dear friend's birthday and exploring this city again.   Growing up near Knoxville (in Strawberry Plains), I didn't absorb much of the city, mostly keeping to my home, school, church and the in-between places.  I'm excited about going home and opening my eyes to see what this city has to offer.   What did I miss? What's new? 

Exciting historical tidbit:

Knoxville used to be known as the  "Underwear Capital of the World" in the 1930s because of the unusual number of textile factories located in the city.  Heck yes.

Also, it was named by Forbes Magazine one of the top 10 metropolitan hot spots in the US in April of 2008.

It's also been rated 17th among the "20 Most Rock & Roll towns in the U.S" by Blender in May 2003.

:) 

This City: Washington, DC

A year from now I want to have gone so deep that it hurts to shift and transition into years beyond college.  My desire is to follow Jesus, and in this heart also is a little girl's request to stay here, to keep growing up and growing ever entangled in a beautiful, imperfect community.  Here, this city.  Something happened here, and I endeavor never to forget it, but instead to live my life ever in the context of the mysterious, beautiful work that God has wrought in my once icy, isolated heart.   Deuteronomy 4:9 informs me that this would be wise :).

This city.

This city.

This city.

I love being here so deeply.  Jeremiah 29:7 reports "seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you."  

The Fray's "It's For You" offers an echo of how much I want to lay down my life for Him in this city for now, and wherever forever.  

when the winds come and they blow

when the rains turn to sleet and snow

when the waters rage at the sea

bitter cold but you warm me

it’s for you I walk through a storm

it’s for you I lay me down

there is nothing that I wouldn’t do for you

when you call I’ll be right there

i’ll turn my world right around for you

don’t you see, don’t you see I’m here

only for you I walk through a storm

only for you I lay me down

 http://www.imeem.com/people/jqjlM7G/music/Oj6KCa4U/the-fray-its-for-you/

Tonight is fiery inside me, as I have a few more minutes, as long as He'll give me to influence this city for Him.  

This piece from Comment's March 2009, 25-29, issue offers words for the passion:

"'Common grace' is a love note slipped under the door of an unexpecting world.  Its beauty, serendipity and profligate generosity bear witness to God's deepest character and affirm His loving heart toward all He has made (Psalm 8, 19, 145).  In doing so, common grace constructs signposts pointing even the most prodigal homeward (Acts 14:15, Acts 17:23).  To labour in the public square for the public good is to join God in this work, true children of the One who ' causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good.' (Mt. 5:45)" 

...Whether against traffic violations or human trafficking, we labour to bring goodness to others. 

...Our role is to pray and act that God's justice and mercy will be reflected, however feebly, within our realm of influence.  this is the Kingdom of God breaking forth- already, and not yet.  The completion of the work is in God's hands.  Our responsibility is simply this: to advance the causes we have been given in ways that consistently reflect the goodness, justice and mercy of God.  This is success, whatever else transpires..."

...If we are to exercise influence wisely, we must tenaciously grip enduring principles, while contunially refining their particular application...

Influencing wisely means holding on to enduring principles, while always applying them with sensitivity."

I want to leverage everything I have to bring His truth to the people I get to touch and walk with in this city.  

Adding to my faith

In college, the activists taught me that to think correctly is not enough. And, honestly, to think correctly but not live actively working to correct what is unwell in the world, I wonder if that is really thinking correctly at all. Faith in Jesus has informed me on how things truly are: that people are loved and valued and known by Him, perfectly; that what is unwell with the world and with us is explained by our sin; that He lived life perfectly then gave it away in exchange for us; and that believing in Him unlocks us from the power of sin and brings us closer to Him and to being with Him in Heaven forever.

So, this is my life. And I have to live like I'm free.

I'm in the ancient words of the Apostle Peter in 2 Peter 1:5-9 today after a friend, Eleiah, brought them up last night in our community:

"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness and to goodness, knowledge and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins."

Adding to my faith, adding to my faith.

There must be integrity between who we say we are and how we live.

Chronicling

I've just finished a brief survey of the Old Testament book 2 Chronicles today.  I started reading it while I was in Israel last May, when I was moved by how intricately the Jews went about preparing the temple for God.  They knew Him, and they could not take Him lightly.   When I read the first 7 chapters describing the preparation, construction and dedication of the temple, I was reminded of the New Testament truth that our bodies are a temple for the Holy Spirit, that temple is a very specific word in the Bible.  

This coincides with where we in my and Kelsey's small group have been reading in Ecclesiastes 5:7..... "...Therefore stand in awe of God."  

My body is His as the temple was His.  How much I must never forget to take God at His word, seriously, deeply.  He is the Creator of all things, the writer of my story, the keeper of names, the lover of all humanity, the one who knows when the goat gives birth and when a world leader rises up.  He knows me perfectly.  He knows every slave perfectly.  This is God, and I cannot deny Him.  In every king's story, 2 Chronicles records a specific time that shows the way each king oriented himself.  It often says "he did evil in the eyes of the Lord" or "he did what was right in eyes of the Lord" and details his action or inaction regarding the idol worship that Israel had embraced.  

What is important is how I orient myself, toward Him or away from Him.  I have lesson after lesson in this book of how to do it wrong and a few on how to do it right.  

In wrapping up, I think one of my favorites is the story of Manasseh in 2 Chronicles, who begins with his orienting phrase in 33:2-3 “ but he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.  For he REBUILT the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down he raised up altars for the Baals and made wooden images and he worshiped all the host of heaven and served them.”

But the sweet part is that later on he humbles himself and the Lord gives him room to turn his life around to serve Him.  Even when his entire reign was characterized by antagonizing God, He still had a place in the heart of God to turn and go forward, doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

Ooh, and one last thought.  "The eyes of the Lord" is such an interesting phrase.  I think there, being in the gaze of the Lord, is the only place I have truly been able to see and accept reality.  

Freedom

I will keep your law continually,
  forever and ever,
and I shall walk in a wide place,
  for I have sought your precepts.

Psalm 119:44-45 (ESV)

What is this wide place? Rahab is the Hebrew word here for wide and it can imply plenty of living space so as to be agreeable, pleasant and freeing. Often this word is used for psychological reality and not just the literal, concrete meaning.

The word of God. True freedom.  ( from a friend's uncle's blog)

Only when we accept the reality of life, the way things are, that we are sinners and He offers perfect grace, can we really live as we were meant to live. 

Risk of Liberty

Katie Herzig's "Jenny Lynn"

All the ones your city crumbles like Babylon
Leaving the gardens you've been hangin' on
Disappear before your eyes
Take your time, let the words sink in before you say your mind
Heaven knows we all get lost sometimes
You will find your way back
Wounded, you let your guard down and feel stupid
You wish you never would have trusted
Your heart in someone else's hands
But it's all ok
I think you may have made the best mistake
I think we're made to give ourselves away
Cause there's no other way to live
Jenny Lynn, I wish that I had your thin skin
I wish that I could let the love right in
Maybe I'd rather feel the pain
Cause freedom is a naked heart that always dares to give
A willingness to let the tenderness be taken as it may

How can this be done and a heart keep going?

I've Been to the Mountaintop

I was blessed to attend the inauguration of Barack Obama yesterday as the United States' 44th president, and afterward I read through Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech "I've Been to the Mountaintop" that he gave on April 4, 1968.  An excerpt is here: 

"As you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of general and panoramic view of the whole human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" — I would take my mental flight by Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there. I would move on by Greece, and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality.

But I wouldn't stop there. I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and esthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even go by the way that the man for whom I'm named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church in Wittenberg.

But I wouldn't stop there. I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating president by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

But I wouldn't stop there. Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy." Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a away that men, in some strange way, are responding — something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee — the cry is always the same — 'We want to be free.'"

With this I must identify.  I must live accepting my responsibility as a human being guilty of sin and loved and forgiven by God, and interdependent on my fellow human beings.  This is what I endeavor to do, to take on life as with full embrace of reality: the depravity of humanity and the perfect grace of God.   I suppose the mountaintop is truth, really understanding who I am, what place I have in this world and more about the God I serve and the people He loves, all people.  I'm climbing :).